The vivoSmart HR is an activity tracker with smart watch aspirations. It uses Garmin’s new optical sensor to constantly measure your heart rate at your wrist, to provide both a resting heart rate measurement, as well as a read out for activities such as running.

Features

The vivoSmart HR has all the usual features of an activity tracker as well as a pressure sensor to more accurately measure stairs climbed, and a touch sensitive screen with selectable screens to display: clock, steps, stairs climbed, activity minutes (more later), calories, distance, music controls, weather, notifications from your smart phone and heart rate (together with average resting HR).

A single button open and closes the menu, and will also start and stop the timer for activities (i.e. running). A long press will turn the device off (and on) too – although I’m not sure how often you’d want to turn it off.

From the menu, you can start the timer for an activity, manually turn on sleep mode, check your alarm, configure Bluetooth, sync your data to Garmin Connect manually, track down your connected smartphone, view recent activities, configure settings and finally view system information like the current firmware version.

Let’s take a look at the 10 screens in turn starting from the clock and swiping up. Note that you could configure what screens are visible, and their order, from the Garmin app. You can also configure the default screen. Swiping down takes you to the last item – so the default is one swipe either way for steps or heart rate.

Clock

A simple, always on time display, with day and date (see photo at top of post).

Steps

Total steps with a target which will automatically adjust based on how active you are. This is a fairly mature technology now and easily accurate enough for its purpose.

Stairs climbed

Total stairs climbed with a target you can set in the Garmin app. This is actually based on height gained, so walking up a hill also counts. This uses the pressure sensor and seems fairly accurate.

Intensity minutes

The target here is 150 minutes of moderate exercise like brisk walking, or 75 minutes of intense exercise like running.

Calories

Steps

This includes both active calories and resting calories – that is calories you burn just being alive.

Distance

This is based on your steps and is usually pretty close to what I measure accurately by GPS (when walking / running – not cycling!).

Music controls

You can control your paired smartphone’s music player. This was a feature I was looking forward to, but for Apple devices at least, it only controls the Apple music app and nothing else. I use the Apple podcast app a lot when cycling and walking but these controls do nothing for that, or for the Deezer app for that matter. I really hope they fix this in a future firmware update.

Weather

Next up is weather, which the vivoactive HR grabs from your paired smartphone. In the UK, you have to put up with Fahrenheit unless you change your distance units to kilometres rather than miles. Something else I hope they’ll fix.

Notifications

All notifications you have set on your paired phone flash up on the display briefly. You can choose to read the message by tapping on it. This is a feature I find useful when cycling for instance, since my phone is usually not easily accessible. You’ll also see incoming calls which you can answer or reject.

You may want to configure what notifications are set on your phone, since everything is passed across. I was getting buzzed just to inform me that the an app had been updated!

Heart Rate

This is arguably the most interesting feature and something I was very keen to try out. An LED underneath the display constantly measures your heart rate and you’ll see two measurements: one for your current heart rate; and another showing your average resting heart rate. I like the idea of seeing my resting heart rate over time in the Garmin app, which is meant to provide a useful indication of my fitness.

The heart rate icon flashes when you swipe to this mode for a few seconds, until it obtains a reading.

Read on for discussion on the accuracy compared to my tried and tested Garmin chest strap paired with a Garmin Edge 810.

In use

Setup is very straightforward and relies firstly on installing the free Garmin Connect app on your smartphone. Bluetooth pairing is done through this app – not the usual way. The vivosmart HR maintains a Bluetooth connection to your phone, whether it’s in your pocket or watching a YouTube video. This allows it to grab notifications and weather information.

When you open the app, it performs a sync where it pulls across your activities, steps, sleep etc. The app is a goldmine of information, which can be configured to display exactly what you want. You can view steps over days or weeks; sleep activity; heart rate over time (including average resting heart rate) and information on recorded activities plus a lot more.

Build quality and comfort

Build quality is very good as I’ve come to expect from Garmin. The strap is comfortable, with fine enough adjustment to get an exact fit. You want a snug fit, above the wrist bone, so that the HR sensor makes good contact with the skin. I do find I tighten the strap slightly if I’m wanting to accurately measure HR, but I’m not certain it makes any difference!

A big selling point of the vivosmart HR, like most Garmin fitness gadgets, is that it’s waterproof. Lots of fitness gadgets surprisingly aren’t, including even the Apple Watch. The display does have a mind of its own under water though.

Record an activity

To record a specific activity like a run, you press the device button, and tap the running man. And then press the device button again to start the timer. That’s the only type of activity you can select, but theoretically this can be any activity.

A timer is started, and activity specific display screens (configurable under Run Options in the Garmin app) are displayed. By default these are: clock, distance, stopwatch, calories and heart rate. The heart rate measurement is more accurate in activity mode, with a measurement taken every second.

At the end of the activity, you press the device button again and tap to save or discard the activity. If saved the activity will, by default, be uploaded to Garmin Connect. Recent activities are also saved on the watch. I haven’t worked out how to manually upload an activity – so it’s best to just leave the auto-upload setting on.

It’s very disappointing that you can’t use GPS off your phone during an activity. I can’t see any reason why not, and can only guess it’s to make sure you look to Garmin’s GPS equipped gadgets for accurate tracking. The step based tracking is good enough for most people, but I do hope Garmin consider enabling this feature in a firmware update.

Battery life

You’d imagine with a constant Bluetooth connection to your smartphone, and an always on display, battery life wouldn’t be great. But while it’s not over a year like Garmin’s vivofit 2, you will get around 4 or 5 days use (including sleep), which isn’t bad.

However, since Garmin use a propriety connection for charging, it’s all too easy to completely run out of charge. You get a charge icon when battery is low, but this still only gives you around 8 hours to locate that charging cable (I’ve already been caught short once).

Sleep mode

Sleep information in Connect app

Sleep mode is much improved on the vivosmart HR compared to the vivofit I tried a while back. It will automatically determine when you fall asleep and when you wake up, based on your activity, and I guess heart rate. It does a fairly good job, and I’m realising I need to get to bed earlier!

You’ll need to view your sleep stats off the Garmin app, which as well as showing your fall-asleep and wake-up times, also displays the amount of light and deep sleep you’ve had, along with your activity (which appears to be how it calculates deep sleep). I’m not really sure what you can actually garner from these graphs, but it’s still interesting to see!

Broadcasting heart rate via ANT+

This is a fantastic feature, which enables you to leave your heart rate strap behind – or save yourself £50 if you don’t already have one.

The vivosmart HR can broadcast your heart rate via the ANT+ protocol to one of the many gadgets that support this. It works perfectly with my Garmin Edge 810. To enable the feature, press the device button and go to Settings | Heart rate.

Find your phone

From the device menu, you can tap on the phone icon to locate your paired smartphone. This is well implemented and sends an audible alert from your phone and also shows a signal strength meter on the watch. This could be handy if you often misplace your smartphone.

Display, backlight and vibration alerts

The display is clear and you can switch the orientation in the Garmin app – I have it set vertically. The touch screen is responsive and works with gloves too. The backlight comes on whenever you touch the display, but only for a short time and there’s no way to alter this length of time.

There is a setting to turn the backlight on automatically when you rotate your wrist, but I couldn’t get this to work.

The backlight is fairly dim, and again there is not way to configure this. But it’s more than adequate.

The watch vibrates for move alerts, notifications, and when you reach your goals. There doesn’t seem to be any way to change when it vibrates, or its intensity. But I find the amount of vibrate just about right.

Optical heart rate monitor accuracy

Optical HR sensor

My main attraction to the vivosmart HR was the optical HR monitor. So I was keen to see how it compared to my heart rate strap.

I started an activity on the vivosmart HR to provide a more accurate HR trace, and at the same time ran my Garmin Edge 810 connected to a Garmin heart rate strap. I then commenced a 2h 30m fairly taxing ride on my mountain bike.

They’re not exactly a perfect match, but both graphs follow similar peaks and troughs, albeit with different absolute values. The last 30 minutes of the ride, they are almost a perfect match. This last 30 minutes was my route home along a cycle path and road. From this graph, it seems the optical HR sensor, is not as fast to respond to fast changes in heart rate, common with mountain biking. This was confirmed with a fairly gentle ride into work, where both graphs were within 5bpm of each other. I’ve not been able to produce a graph of this unfortunately.

For the casual “athlete” like me, the results from the optical HR are easily good enough. The ability of the vivosmart HR to broadcast to an ANT+ device like my Garmin Edge 810, means for cycling to work for instance I probably won’t bother with the chest strap anymore. I like having information on my heart rate, since it does give a better picture of how hard you’ve actually worked.

For longer rides, where I look down at the Edge for my HR zone for instance, I don’t think I could completely rely on the optical HR sensor just yet. I’ll test further, and update this article accordingly.

Conclusions

Pros

Waterproof

Responsive touch screen

Optical HR is generally accurate enough

Measures all day heart rate and trends in resting heart rate

Garmin Connect app does a good job of combing data from multiple fitness gadgets

Sleep monitoring is well implemented

Notifications are a useful feature. Nice to also be able to read text messages

Broadcasting HR via ANT+ is a great feature if you have any ANT+ fitness gadgets

Cons

Can’t get weather in Celsius if you choose miles as units

Proprietary charging cable required for charging

No GPS built in or the ability to use paired smartphone’s GPS

Accuracy of optical HR sensor can be erratic

Not possible to connect to a heart rate chest strap

The vivoSmart HR is somewhere between an activity tracker and a smart watch. If it was able to use your phone’s GPS and added some activity modes (which could all be added by a firmware update), I’d have no hesitation recommending it. But even without these features, and considering it’s only a little more expensive than it little brother, the vivofit 2, I think it definitely deserves serious consideration.

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Be sure your watch is charged. Put it in its cradle and then plug the USB end into your computer. While doing this, you might as well open Garmin Express/Garmin Connect to sync the latest downloads to your watch and to upload your latest activities. Once charged sufficiently for the screen to be visible, hold the Start/Stop button for a few seconds. The screen will change to “Lock Device / Power Off.” Press the right side (“Power Off”). Your watch is now asleep. To awaken, press Start/Stop for a few seconds. A triangle will appear and then will disappear to be replaced automatically with your regular screens. Your watch is on. [The only caveat that I know of is that your watch will use TrueUp if you wear a second Garmin while the HR+ is sleeping. If one of these watches is asleep for days, then TrueUp will set your sleep time as the time your watch was asleep, so it is possible for your statistics to show that you have been sleeping for several days! For all other data, TrueUp will be correct with two watches.]

I’m having trouble with my weather app connection as well. The watch only displays weather when I turn on Garmin connect from my phone. The display was always there before, and I can’t figure out how to get that back.

I agree that the weather app does not seem to work anymore. I do understand the part that Techsuppork says about Garmin Connect needs to be running. The part that Techsuppork and Garmin instruction manuals NEVER say is what weather app is best for Garmin to see and use. You know, step by step, such as (1) Load Yahoo! Weather app to your phone, (2) Open Garmin Connect on your phone, in cell-tower mode, (3) Put your phone in your pocket, (4) Go outside, (5) Scroll to your weather page.

Hi,
Thanks for the review, I’m currently deciding between vivosmart hr and vivoactive hr, but considering the price difference and the fact I own forerunner 910xt I think I’ll get vivosmart.

Regarding sensor accuracy – it looks from the pictures you are not wearing it correctly – should be few cm away from wrist bone, if you want accurate results. Might be just an angle of the pics though.

Thanks for your comment. I did always make sure it wasn’t over wrist bone. You just need to make sure the sensor is making contact with your skin. I adjusted the tightness of the strap too – but that didn’t make a lot of difference.

I agree that tightness is more important than location. The beats per minute (bpm) are inaccurate when the user is not warmed up. In fact, if you just start running, your displayed bpm will soar to heart-attack ranges. Instead, on a treadmill, start walking and within the first 1/4-mile adjust the speed upward to 3.5 MPH. Between 1/4-mile and 1/2-mile, adjust the speed to a fast walk (3.8 MPH). For the second 1/4-mile, run at a really low speed for you, such as 4.5-6.0 MPH. Look at the bpm to be sure the beats get into your two Intensity Minutes per minute range of “intense” exercise. Once your Garmin recognizes that your bpm are “intense” (about 92 bpm for me, an old man), then you can change the treadmill to any fast speed that you desire. The bpm remain accurate now that you have allowed the Garmin to observe your increasing pace for a few minutes of warmup.

The other thing that you might do, under the “run” settings of your watch, is set a customized alert that will warn you if your bpm reach heart-attack range. My setting is something like 39-142 bpm, as I never get into the 30s even when sleeping, and above 142 would stress me at 95% or so of MaxHR. Your range might also start at your dead bpm and go up to your just-shy-of-heart-attack bpm. With the alert set, you never have to monitor your Garmin while running.

Yikes, I have errors in my advice. Walk 1/8 mile at 3.5 MPH. Walk the next 1/8 mile at 3.8 MPH. Run the next 1/4 mile at an easy-for-you 4.5-6.0 MPH. After this 1/2 mile of warmup, your Garmin’s bpm will be accurate at any speed. Once you get to your running speed, don’t program your treadmill to make rapid changes of pace (ie, interval training) or again your watch might show a bpm that is dangerously high.

As John Phillips says, if you want accurate distances you need the GPS version. The GPS will determine your stride. If you walk or run in different locations (such as in a straight line on rubber, or in the woods on gravel), your Garmin stride will not be accurate for anything other than your averages. What you might do (what I do) is when running on a treadmill and Garmin is using your average stride, accept the treadmill’s distance as the accurate distance. Depending on whether your Garmin is showing more or less distance than your treadmill, you can either run a faster 1/4 mile or walk a 1/4 mile to bring the two distances into concordance. That is, set an alert so that Garmin chirps if your bpm get too high, then switch to a “distance” screen. Once every 3 to 5 miles, bring your Garmin and treadmill distances into concordance by doing the run/walk thing.

Of course, if you are running an event that earns a badge, go into manual mode and edit your final distance to what you know is correct (say 26.2 miles if your watch shows 26.1 miles, when you cut too many corners, as you might not earn a marathon badge for 26.1 miles).

Do you know if there is a way to add an activity other than “Run Cardio Other”?
Each time I do strength training I have to go into the Garmin Connect app and change “Other” to “Strength Training”. It would be nice if I could just choose “Strength Training” instead of “Other” from the vivosmart itself.
Thanks,
-Hal

Your Garmin watch can classify your exercise into hundreds of categories. However, except for run and walk, indoors and outdoors, you must do a manual edit to display whatever it was that you did. For example, you might fly a drone, jump with a wingsuit, ride a bike in rocks, or other activities for which Garmin has no sensors but does award badges. For badges dependent on distance, day, temperature, IM, your watch can use its internal sensors to award you the earned badge.

There is (now?) a “Statute UK” setting you can select in User Settings. If you select that in Garmin Connect and then an the vivosmart hr you go to settings and select miles instead of kilometer, then you should see celsius and miles.
-Hal

I notice while driving a truck a 18 kilometer journey I did 250 steeps plus a few hundred meters obviously I didn’t move from the seat ? Is there anything I can do to stop it from reading inaccurate ?.

You can turn off your watch, put your watch in your pocket, or anything else that will keep your Garmin from monitoring your hand movements. I’m with Gidon, just enjoy the free steps that Garmin gives you.

I like to see my steps while jogging/walking. But it doesn’t seem like I can do that with the vivosmart hr? Once I start an activity, is there a way to view steps? I can’t find that option, am I missing something?

No, you cannot see steps during an activity. However, you can see steps, Intensity Minutes, and floors on Garmin Connect. For instance, if you are on a treadmill, plug your charger cable into the treadmill, turn on Garmin Connect, place your cell phone on the rack, and start your activity. You can see two things on your watch (I choose heart rate and distance) and the steps, IM, floors on your cell phone. If you are outside without a place to hold your phone, then this option to place the cell phone on your treadmill’s rack is less useful.

I have bought this Watch. Following my feedback based on my experience.
Cons
1. It is waterproof but the over all accuracy drastically reduces while swimming. Possibly due to optical sensor.
2. Does not detect Breaststroke.
3. You have to install a separate app to monitor calorie intake.

Pros:
1. Measures Active Calorie measurement quite accurately in dry conditions.
2. Steps measurement is quite accurate.
3. If you are idle for few hours, then it vibrates and encourages to Move, that is quite helpful.

The Vivosmart is like a traditional activity tracker but it’s smarter. It has smart Bluetooth notifications and a clearer display…although it lacks a GPS sensor. Also I was unable to pair my external heart rate sensor (ANT+) with this device. Maybe the latest version does but mine doesn’t. I have had no problems with the optical HR sensor but the chest HRM is more accurate.

Hi Bron
Try this and see if it helps: on your Vivosmarthr press the only physical button, which opens the main menu (you see the little man, the crescent moon, and an alarm clock) touch and scroll to the third screen.
You see a document folder, the settings icon, and the info icon. Touch on the Settings icon and scroll to Units, there you should be able to change from miles to kilometers, and that will change the F to C.

So I have switched my miles to km…. and every time I seem to have my watch sync it changes the setting back so in turn it changes my weather songs back to f instead of my preferred c. Very annoying that it doesn’t keep my setting any help to have it stay!

Carissa, that was helpful advice, I think that both the Watch and the App need to be identical. e.g. If your watch says Kilometres and the App has Miles set it will sync from the App overriding settings. I just checked them both and set to Kilometres which now displays constantly in ºC as opposed to ºF.

I received the Vivosmart HR for Christmas and found your review very clear and helpful in understanding the features and how to set up. My only complaint to Garmin is the Miles/Celcius choice set up. Hopefully this will be updated!

I’m not sure if there has been an update since your review but I’m pleased to say that the music buttons now work with the music on the IPhone 🙂

Can the activity recorder be used effectively to time an activity such as running or swimming? I’m looking for something to replace my watch, but I want it to include a stopwatch. Would the activity recorder fulfill that? Does it record the exact time from the time you press the button to the time you press it again?

Yes, the Vivosmart HR+ is a stopwatch. It records the time between presses. I find the watch somewhat annoying in that sometimes it takes two presses to get it going with GPS. If you aren’t careful, you can press the start and believe you have the timer going, only to see in 5 minutes or so that the watch is about to go into battery-saver mode (ie, lose all data). So you can’t just take a jackrabbit start. You have to press the start and then look at your watch for a second to verify that it is recording an outdoor activity. The stop button always works with one press.

If you are running Windows, you can use File Manager to delete any fit file. Just connect your watch to your computer by wire, and treat your watch as if it were a hard drive. Delete any file you don’t want to save.

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You write great content but you should rank your blog higher in search engines.
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Marcel’s way

You may not want notifications, as these can shake your arm. They also drain your battery with the shaking. As for stride length, go to Garmin Connect. Click your watch icon in the top right of the screen. Edit your settings.

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Vivosmart is GPS device that developed by Garmin to detect your heartrate. Vivosmart also able to keep your activity data and provide it to computer. Your advance and wide information about vivosmart makes it more understandable for users. Keep sharing your more data and information about Garmin gadgets with users.

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Hello, I enjoyed your video. My watch is in the lock mode and I do not want it auto locked?
I see all the directions to lock it, but not to unlock it? I do not like to tap twice everytime I use it. Would you have time to please let me know how to unlock it? Thank you in advance for your time.
Annie Blide

Thanks Gidon. You have the best Vivosmart HR review that I have seen. Here are some clarifications:

1. Intensity Minutes earn double credit (2IM/minute) when the user is above Zone 2. If someone is walking on a treadmill and wants the maximum IM, either run occasionally or walk faster to get yourself into Zone 2.

(2) Weather does not seem to Bluetooth well. Is there a preferred Weather app on Play Store that the Garmin HR links with best?

(3) Notifications can definitely be too frequent. Go into Garmin Connect to turn off notifications. I only get the notification for when my bpm gets into heart-attack range.

(4) Activities do start with a press of the Start button, but it is easy to get this wrong. Be sure to bring up the Little Man and then the “Press to Start” screen. At this point, your activity is NOT started. Your watch will go into battery saver mode in about 5 minutes. You must press Start after seeing the Press to Start notification, and you must see the “Timer” screen next. If you see the Timer screen, you have correctly started your activity. That is, you need to press “Start” three times, once to bring up Little Man, once to see “Press to Start” for your selected activity, and once to see “Timer.”

(5) The battery life is not a problem if you leave your charging cable in your computer’s USB port. Whenever you sit at your computer, plug in your watch for a charge. If you are like me, you are always at your computer for a longer time than you anticipated.

(6) The Beats per Minute are slow to respond to changes in exercise level. Start with a 5-minute warmup. Get into at least Zone 2. Then start your activity. Your bpm will be accurate if you start from at least Zone 2.

(7) The Vivosmart HR+ is a great value, more so if purchased as a refurbished model (identical to new, with the same warranty). What you won’t get are VO2Max and Training Level that are found on more expensive watches. This means you can’t earn any Garmin badges based on improving your VO2Max or your Training Level. You do get many fitness metrics such as steps, distance, bpm, Intensity Minutes, floors, and training plans. The Vivosmart is a big improvement from my previous Vivofit 1, FR70, and the brick-thing that I would strap to my bicep.

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Gidon’s obsession with technology began at an early age with a BBC B Micro computer. After working for 12 years at British Telecom travelling around the world as a technology researcher he opened a technology retail store in Tavistock in Devon, selling the latest tech and offering IT services to residential and business customers. Read More…

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